Gastroenterologists, surgeons, and other physicians commonly obtain tissue samples for biopsy when examining interior parts of the body using an endoscope. Modern endoscopes are usually flexible instruments comprising a fiberoptic viewing system and a tubular channel through which biopsy forceps can be passed to obtain the samples. Prior art biopsy forceps are designed to obtain a single small piece of tissue on each passage through the endoscope. Such single pass forceps, however, are time consuming to use since clinicians frequently require multiple biopsies of a diseased area in order to gather adequate pathological or other scientific information and then the instrument must be passed in and out of the endoscope for each biopsy specimen. In addition when single pass forceps are used, the endoscope must be realigned to the tissue location in question for each specimen.
Prior art biopsy forceps have typically been constructed from surgical stainless steel making such instruments expensive to produce, and requiring sterilization procedures after each use while not fully eliminating risk of the spread of infection. Stainless steel forceps are, in addition, frequently difficult to pass along the endoscope channel when the endoscope must be acutely angled to access a lesion.
Thus, there is a need in the art for a biopsy forceps instrument which enables a clinician to obtain multiple tissue samples per each pass through the endoscope to increase the speed and simplicity of the procedure and reduce patient discomfort.